Social media companies are the real 'enemies of the people'
Social media has coarsened public discourse, silenced conservative voices and lowered the quality of journalism. We must do something about it.
Last weekend President Trump took aim at the rising trend of censorship on social media platforms. "Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices," the president Tweeted on Saturday. "Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump administration, we won’t let that happen." He said that "[c]ensorship is a very dangerous thing," and urged social media companies to "let everybody participate, good & bad, and we will all just have to figure it out!" Ironically this used to be the position of the ACLU, before it decided to start balancing speech against its possible impact on the progressive agenda.
Most reporting on this topic has focused on the banning of conspiracy-monger Alex Jones from many social media platforms. But the censorship drive goes well beyond Infowars. Conservative author Doug Wead published a detailed analysis showing how Google systematically stifled his content from being available on Youtube and in Google search results. John Hinderaker writes how Google did the same to Dennis Prager and his Prager University videos, and when Prager went to court over it, Facebook piled on and reduced the reach among his 3 million followers to zero. And a confidential memo by Media Matters from 2017 detailing how major social media platforms can collude to eliminate “right-wing propaganda" and "fake news” was recently exposed.
Social media has become a public menace
Social media companies say that the people they ban have violated the terms of service, such as engaging in hate speech, or being suspected of being a Russian bot. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that his company skews leftward, but denies that this has any impact on what content is allowed on the platform. And since these are private companies in theory they should be free to establish whatever content policies they want.
But private companies can become a public menace. It is becoming clearer that these social media platforms are having a corrosive effect on public debate and expression generally. Paradoxically, greater access to information has not led to more informed public discourse. Even with all the world’s information at our fingertips, discussion has gotten coarser, more superficial, more vulgar, and more prone to threats, insults and violence. Social media also pull together and empower radicals of all stripes by making it easier for them to collaborate and pass on their toxic brews.
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Social media encourage our worst instincts in part due to the limitations of the platforms. People who browse through information on their tablets and mobile phones are more likely to respond to histrionic headlines and vivid graphics. Journalists know that dramatic stories get more clicks, which has led to a general decline in temperate reporting and a rise in Jim Acosta-style grandstanding — not to mention lower public trust in the media. And it isn’t just journalists — anyone in the virtual world can zap out thoughtless, angry comments that they might never express in person. If Twitter banned all hateful speech they would probably lose 75 percent of their traffic.
It would be a mistake to look to the government to control the information flow, as some Senate Democrats are discussing. Once we start down that road we could wind up in a situation like China, where the government rates citizens using a system of “social credits” that rewards behavior the state approves of and punishes that which Beijing frowns on. The expression “Facebook jail” could take on a new, more literal meaning.
Government could take action
This doesn’t mean the government has no role to play. The White House could ban these firms from government contracts until they clean up their act. Congress could investigate the threat to privacy social media present through buying and selling personal information. The Justice Department could consider instigating antitrust actions. Compare what Google is doing today to what Microsoft was charged with in the 1990s and the case makes itself.
For conservatives, the answer is to tune out. There are social media alternatives, and there is nothing is stopping people from developing their own networks if they want. It is a fantastic business opportunity. Facebook, Twitter and other such platforms are 100 percent dependent on the users who voluntarily provide information to them. The algorithms that increasingly control your life are your fault. And if people stopped using these services, they would go away.
OK, now try to share this article on Facebook. It has probably already been banned.
James S. Robbins, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "Erasing America: Losing Our Future by Destroying Our Past," has taught at the National Defense University and the Marine Corps University and served as a special assistant in the office of the secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration. Follow him on Twitter: @James_Robbins.